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The Development of Life Purpose
Running head: Effects of an International Experience on Life Purpose
The Development of Life Purpose in College Students: A Preliminary Study on the Effects of an International Living and Learning Experience
Cindy Miller-Perrin
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA 90263
(310) 506-4027
Don Thompson
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA 90263
(310) 506-4831
The Development of Life Purpose in College Students:
A Preliminary Study on the Effects of an International Living and Learning Experience
Abstract
The present study examined the impact of an international program experience on college students’ personal growth in the areas of faith, life purpose, and identity. Participants were selected from a random sample of 300 students belonging to a Lilly Endowment sponsored study. A subsample of 37 students who participated in an international program (the IP Group) was matched demographically to 37 students who did not (No IP Group). Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted, revealing significant interaction effects, indicating that faith, life purpose, and identity achievement scores increased over time for the IP Group but decreased for the No IP Group.
The Development of Life Purpose in College Students:
A Preliminary Study on the Effects of an International Living and Learning Experience
College students in the United States have studied abroad as part of their educational experience since Indiana University first sponsored its summer educational tours in 1881, according to the chronology of Hoffa (2007). Soon thereafter, many schools established programs abroad, ranging from the Princeton-in-Asia program in 1898 to the Rhodes Scholarship program in 1904 and the Fulbright Scholar program beginning in 1948 (Hoffa, 2007). By the third decade of the twentieth century, there was some kind of study abroad offering for undergraduates available in nearly every college on the eastern seaboard of the United States, complementing an effort by many European universities to offer summer courses for foreigners on their own campuses (Hoffa, 2007). These practices continue today in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.
Not only do a significant number of universities have students who study abroad, but the frequency of student participation in these programs that earn academic credit has risen dramatically over the last twenty years. According to Bhandari & Chow (2007), there were approximately 44,000 U.S. students who studied abroad for academic credit in 1986, compared to over 223,000 students in 2006. This represents an average annual growth rate of 23%. By contrast, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2008), there were 12,504,000 students attending college in 1986, compared with 17,672,000 in 2006. Thus, the relative number of students studying abroad for academic credit rose from 0.35% of the student population to 1.26%. Clearly, international education experiences are becoming an increasingly important component of the higher education enterprise.
College students participate in study abroad programs for many reasons, including their desire to travel, to experience another culture, to enhance their language skills, to fulfill degree requirements for their university, or simply to take advantage of the opportunity to live and learn in another setting. The benefits of such an experience are many and varied. There is evidence in current research literature that students who participate in an educational experience in an international setting demonstrate an increase in foreign language proficiency (DuFon and Churchill, 2006), in cultural understanding (Zielinski, 2007), as well as in personal growth, self-awareness, and self-understanding (Black and Duhon, 2006). In addition, there is a growing body of research literature that identifies study abroad programs as one of several key curriculum components for enhancing student engagement in undergraduate education (Gonyea, Kinzie, Kuh and Laird, 2008).
Foreign Language Proficiency
According to the work of Geertz (1973), cultures are stratigraphic systems that define the relations between biological, physical, and social realities of human life, with cultural universals forming our institutionalized responses to these realities. One universal which is critical to defining culture is its set of symbols, included in which is that culture’s language. Indeed, without an understanding of the culture’s language, with its nuances and hidden meanings, one cannot, ultimately, understand the culture itself. Advances in foreign language acquisition are most significant when accompanied by movement away from home, in another cultural setting (Freed, Segaloqitz, & Dewey, 2004). In addition, students who study abroad gain a sense of membership in the attending culture because they are more self-aware of their language skills and accordingly are therefore more inclined to ask foreign interlocutors for assistance to increase their comprehension (Cubillos, Chieffo, & Fan,2008). Language proficiency moves the students from an introductory conversancy with peoples of other cultures and countries toward a deeper engagement with the people themselves. This movement provides the opportunity for students to gain a better understanding of the host country people, facilitating their awareness and sensitivity toward the host culture.
Cultural Understanding
From language acquisition, two additional, sequential benefits of an international study experience flow – cultural awareness and intercultural relationships. Geertz (1973) argues that cultural understanding involves two layers of the cultural stratigraphy: 1) awareness of cultural norms and mores, and 2) interpersonal engagement with people in the cultural framework. The first level can be experienced, albeit superficially, without visiting or residing in the host country. It may not last, however, unless it is accompanied by the second layer, wherein the individual invests interpersonally with others in the culture. The second layer can be apprehended only if one enters the cultural geography itself.
In terms of cultural awareness, there are a number of studies that examine the potential impact of an international learning experience, first in terms of the duration of the experience and second, in terms of the longitudinal changes that occur within the timeframe of the experience. Zielinski (2007), for example, measured the cross-cultural adaptability of undergraduate college students participating in study abroad programs of various durations, with the goal of determining the minimum time required for cultural awareness to become apparent. In this pre/post study, the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory was used to assess four factors associated with cross-cultural adaptability: (a) emotional resilience, (b) flexibility/openness, (c) perceptual acuity, and (d) personal autonomy. Her work demonstrated that students who participated in programs lasting nine weeks or longer showed higher levels of cross-cultural awareness, indicating openness toward and understanding of other cultures.
According to Geertz (1973), cultural awareness is requisite to cultural interaction. In this regard, Kitsantas (2004) examined the broader impact that study abroad programs have on students' cross-cultural skills as a function of their cultural awareness. The results showed that not only do students who study abroad gain deeper cultural understanding, but they often act upon this increased level of understanding by actualizing their desire to engage with members of the host culture, which brings even deeper personal benefits. According to Domville-Roach (2007), for example, language acquisition leads to a greater ability on the part of study abroad students to build relationships with the host nationals, learn about a new culture, and experience personal change in the form of emotional growth, intellectual development, and professional development. Other researchers, such as Black & Duhon (2006), demonstrated that summer study abroad programs increase students’ desire and ability to interact effectively with people of other cultures – particularly, their flexibility, emotional resilience, and their sense of personal autonomy.
As an extra benefit, subsequent to interpersonal engagement with members of other cultures, there is evidence that students embrace a more positive view of both the cultural members and of themselves. Engagement with host nationals, according to Drews, Meyer, and Peregrine (1996), is associated with a more "personalized" view of other national groups. In this study, those who had studied abroad were more likely to conceive of other national groups in terms associated with the character of individuals and less likely to think of national groups in terms of food, historical events, geographical characteristics, and similarly non-personal attributes than they had previously stated. Thus, the study abroad engagement experience, viewed as an educational intervention, brought about a deeper sense of commonality between the U.S. students and the people with whom they associated from their host country. McCabe (1994) found that students reflected upon their identity of citizenship and negotiated the multiple ways their national identity was interpreted abroad by foreign locals. These findings suggest that international study experiences contribute to several forms of cultural understanding: a) awareness of the cultural frameworks, b) personal interaction with host nationals, and c) more positive views of other cultures and of one’s self.
Personal Growth
As students encounter another culture and build relationships with its members, they may also gain a deeper understanding of themselves, leading to various forms of personal growth. Based on the writing of Pausanias, ancient Greek traveler and geographer, living and learning abroad may contribute to one of the oldest cultural aphorisms, as inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: gnwqi sayton (“know thyself”), (Habicht, 1985).
There is also evidence in the contemporary literature attesting to personal growth that may occur, including emotional and intellectual growth. The Institute for the International Education of Students (IES), for example, conducted a study of 3,400 college students that had studied abroad, spanning a 49-year period. Student feedback revealed deep personal growth including focused education and career goals at the conclusion of their study abroad (Dwyer & Peters, 2004). Results of a study conducted through a Midwest school indicated that a study abroad experience led to gains in confidence, maturity, and empathy among the student participants (Gray, Murdock, & Stebbins 2002). In narrative interviews, Sindt (2007) found that American college students reported significant personal growth in the form of maturation, autonomy and self-reliance, and increased desire to apply themselves to their field of study. Finally, the impact of an overseas, one-year study abroad program in England upon U.S. college students was measured via results from a four-part survey questionnaire that participants completed. Substantial changes were reported in attitudes, specific knowledge levels, beliefs, values, behaviors, open-mindedness, personal growth, and general appreciation of other cultures (Thomlison, 1991). Thus, the literature reveals both interest in and evidence of impact on personal growth of college students when they participate in an international study experience.
The Current Study
Our review of previous research suggests that living and learning in another country is associated with two fundamental outcomes. The first is an increase in external connections, manifested through an increased ability to converse in another tongue and an increased understanding and sensitivity to another culture. The second outcome is an internal redirection, resulting in a deepening sense of one’s identity and self-awareness. Joseph Campbell has much to say about both of these elements, as he writes about the importance of journey. About the external dimension he says: “And this is the basic mythological problem: Move into a landscape. Find the sanctity of that land. And then there can be a matching of your own nature with this gorgeous nature of the land. It is the first essential adaptation” (Campbell, 2003, p.7). Campbell notes, however, that external change is not legitimate unless it is accompanied by internal change. We leave home and, perhaps for the first time, discover ourselves. We step outside our bodies, so to speak, and accordingly we see our own body anew. Campbell himself lived this out in his travels and subsequent scholarship. It was when he moved to Paris that he came into contact with his very deepest passion, the world common to all of mankind – the world of inner transformation.
As the preceding literature review indicates, study abroad experiences and their relationship to several external educational goals have been studied extensively in terms of its effects on enhancing foreign language acquisition as well as cultural awareness and intercultural relationships. In addition, there is growing evidence of the importance of study abroad programs on other external higher education goals such as “high-impact” practices that engage college students to a greater extent than traditional classroom-based instructional experiences. The National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE), for example, recently described evidence of the most significant activities that impact student success in and beyond the college years (Kuh, 2008). Study abroad was one of these “high impact activities,” identified as affecting such areas as academic achievement, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, satisfaction, acquisition of desired knowledge, skills and competencies, persistence, attainment of educational objectives, knowledge of human cultures and the physical/natural world, intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, deep/integrative learning, and post-college performance (Gonyea, Kinzie, Kuh and Laird, 2008).
In contrast, research addressing higher education goals associated with the interior life and its redirection have not yet been fully explored in terms of their connection to study abroad experiences. The current study, therefore, focuses on several elements of personal growth and internal redirection that are particularly salient during the college years. The first element is students’ developing sense of life purpose, hereafter referred to as vocational calling. The current study examined life purpose through a religious or spiritual lens and used the term “vocational calling,” to emphasize the specific context of faith beliefs in contributing to life purpose. Questions about life meaning and purpose often surface during the college years as students consider issues associated with both faith beliefs and career options. For the purpose of the current study, we draw from the conceptual literature on vocation and life purpose and define vocational calling somewhat broadly, as one’s sacred lifework, which includes any human activity that gives meaning, purpose, and direction to life. In discerning one’s vocational calling, then, the question is this: “What am I supposed to do with my life?” or “What am I living for?” Although little attention has been given to this area of personal growth, it is of significant interest to many who study college student development. Indeed, many authors have argued that higher education can, and should, play a central role in helping students to discover and pursue their vocational callings (Crosby, 2004; Dalton, 2001).
The second element is students’ developing sense of faith and spirituality. College students are increasingly interested in matters of religion, faith, and spirituality as it relates to their life purpose and sense of personal wholeness. For example, studies on beliefs and values among college students (Higher Education Research Institute, 2005), research projects focusing on youth and religion (Smith & Denton, 2005), and the surge in enrollments in religiously affiliated colleges and universities (Riley, 2004) evidence a movement toward a greater focus on faith, spirituality, and religion in the academy. In addition, Paloutzian, Richardson, and Rambo (1999) suggest that religion is the only area in which one encounters commitment to an ultimate concern or purpose and as a result, might inspire the development of life purpose or a sense of vocation. There have been numerous studies that have researched the relationship between faith and life purpose, and findings indicate a positive relationship between life purpose and various aspects of faith, such as mysticism (Byrd, Lear, & Schwenka, 2000), spiritual experiences (Kass, Friedman, Leserman, Zuttermeister, & Benson, 1991), religious conversion (Paloutzian et al., 1999), and spiritual strivings (Emmons, 2005).